Some Gave All: French Military Museum at The Invalides

Some Gave All: French Military Museum at The Invalides:

French Military Museum at The Invalides

These are photographs of the absolutely incredible museum at The Invalides, a structure which was originally a French hospital but which was converted by Napoleon to military use.



All photographs by MKTH.

The amount of material at this museum, including these cannons, is absolutely incredible  Everything from and about French military history can be found there.

These are small artillery models.  Incredibly detailed.

Model soldiers depicting Napoleonic Wars era troops.

Martial musical instruments.

Coat and hat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon's hat.

Napoleon's horse.

Portrait of Napoleon as Emperor of France.

Russian uniforms of the World War One and civil war period.

This uniform reflects the typical French uniform of the Franco Prussian War period on to early in World War One.

Uniform of German landser, World War One, post 1915, with Maxim 08 machine gun.

M1916 German helmet with death's head, as used by Freikorps units.

Polish uniforms circa World War One.

American Army uniform as worn in Siberia by American troops committed to Russia during World War One.

Flag of French forces that were committed to Russia from 1914 to 1919.

World War One era French cavalry display.

I can be as unsentimental about New Years as anyone, but. . .

I'm tired of the snarky set of commentary you now routinely get about "why" is January 1 the start of the New Year and "why" do we celebrate it anyhow.*

A person can pick a different calendar date to start a new year, to be sure. And other cultures do.  But of interest, all this really does it to point out a couple of things.

People, all people everywhere, are well aware that the year is a year long.  We've known that from day one, by observing the passing of the seasons, although more and more it seems that part of the our separation from nature involves not even being aware of that fact.

And people seem to need to mark that passing, if for no other reason than to mark their successes and failures and hope to continue them or correct them. People who emphasize the "why celebrate" type of line of thinking must feel that the world is on a simply wonderful coarse all the time and needs not course correction at all. They're wrong.  And most people's lives can use some self reflection as well.

As for the date, the snarky will point that on the Old Calendar, which the Orthodox and Protestants used after Pope Gregory had the calendar corrected, and which even the UK and by extension British North America continued to use until 1752, there were some who celebrated the New Year as starting in March.  

More particularly, however, they were starting the New Year with the Feast of the Annunciation, which made sense as its the beginning of things Christian.  So snarks who like to point that out probably ought to consider that it wasn't a right of spring or some such nonsense that those Christian people were celebrating by choosing late March as the beginning of the year.*  They were marking what they felt to be the beginning of the Liturgical Year at the time, something that meant a great deal to them.

Most cultures, however, seem to place the start of the year in the Fall and Winter, and there's some deep seated reason for that.  The Jewish New Year starts in September, early Fall, but after the work of the year was over and the waiting for the beginning of the next year's work had commenced.  Egyptian and Ethiopian Coptic calendars also start the New Year in September  The Vietnamese New Year, Tet, moves as its based on a lunar calendar, but its always in January or February.  Chinese New Year is the exact same, and indeed might be on the exact same date (I'm not sure).** The Korean lunar New Year likewise is at the same time of the year and in contemporary South Korea, Koreans get both New Years Day (January 1) off and an additional three days for lunar new year.  Plains Indian Tribes marked the year via "winter counts" which varied somewhat, but which were based on the winter.  The Sioux, for example, started the new year with the first snowfall.

Now, of course,  not every calendar runs that way.  But the fact that enough place the new year sometime in the cold months says something.  And before somebody says "well, what about the half the people in the Southern Hemisphere", 68% of the landmass of earth is in the Norther Hemisphere.  And through the course and accidents of history, while there were advanced cultures south of the hemisphere, the fact is that most (not all, but most) of the cultures that contributed to the advance of history have lived in the Northern Hemisphere, if perhaps for no other reason that that most people live where the land is.***

There is something going on when most people in the world do the same thing, no matter how broadly spaced out they are.  And most cultures in the world have put the new year in the cold months and most of them have a celebration for it.  That shouldn't' be lightly ignored, if at no other level, than on the personal one.

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*I'll confess that I've been a prime exhibitor of such snark myself, at least on a stated level.  But as W. E. B. Dubois stated, "only a fool never changes his mind".  For various reasons, I've really changed my view, but then on a personal level, I've always marked the changing of the year.  Maybe this year I'm just noting the other view more, which runs from the New York Times (at least in comments) to Dilbert, but that view ignores something different.

**Which meant that they were celebrating the start of the New Year and then going right into Easter, assuming that they hadn't already celebrated Easter (which moves on the calendar), all why trying to get crops in, etc.  It probably didn't have that "new" year feel to it really.

**Indeed, it's a unique phenomenon of modern life that a lot of the same snarks who will sneer at Pope Gregory adopting January 1 as the the start of the year will gush and gush about Chinese and Vietnamese lunar new years, which follow soon thereafter.

***And, before somebody goes off half corked on it, well over half of Africa is in the Northern Hemisphere and I'm  not making some sort of Eurocentric assertion here..  Indeed, when looked at this way, the significant exceptions to the calendar rule would be the Mayans, who live in the Northern Hemisphere but whose new year was in July.  Sure, there are other dates, including in Africa, but as I've already pointed out, at least three cultures with their base in Africa celebrate the New Years in the noted time frames.

New Years Day, 1919

Leyendecker portrayed the New Year letting the dove of peace out of its cage, which was appropriate if not universally true following the end of World War One in Europe.

It was January, 1919.

The dawn of the year following the Great War. . . not that peace reigned everywhere by any means.

117th Field Signal Battalion perssonel (1st Bn, Signal Corps, Missouri National Guard) Bachem, Germany.  January 1, 1919.

A large number of those Americans woke up in Germany that day, in uniformed service.  1919 would see the draw down, but not the end, of occupation duties in Germany for the U.S. Army.

Dinner at Chateau Villegenis, the home of Mrs. Corey New Years Day, 1919.  Mrs. Corey loaned the home to the American Red Cross as a convalescent home for Army Officers. It was officially known as "Officers Convalescent Home #8."

Quite a few were in France.

Red Cross canteen in France, New Years Day 1919.

Some with the Red Cross spent the day visiting villagers returning to their wrecked villages in France.

Some were hoping to return home, but were finding that journey perilous.

Rescuing the stranded from the S. S. Northern Pacific, which ran aground off of Fire Island, Long Island, New York.  January 1, 1919.

For some, that journey would never complete that day.

The Admiralty yauch HMS Iolaire which wrecked off the Outer Hebrides on New Years Day while returning sailors to their homes with the loss of over 200 lives.

The Wyoming State Tribune offered a helpful tip for writing the date of the new year correctly.

The Cheyenne paper was reporting that Chancellor Ebert favored a republic of new men.  While that was in fact Ebert's desire, he was facing a Communist revolution that was on the verge of taking over in Berlin.  The Cheyenne paper was hoping that the pen was mightier than the sword at the same time, which Ebert likely was at that point too, but which he'd have to reconsider shortly.

And in case you wondered, a team of Marines played a team of Sailors that year in the Rose Bowl.

Blog Mirror: The New York Times; Opinion 1919: The Year of the Crack-Up

Opinion

1919: The Year of the Crack-Up

From the Treaty of Versailles to Prohibition, the events of that year shaped America, and the world, for a century to come.

By Ted Widmer

Mr. Widmer is a distinguished lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York.

New Years' Resolutions for Other People. 2019 Edition

Last year I didn't do this and there was a lot of misbehavior here and there.  Not wanting to be responsible for that sort of thing again, here's my helpful 2019 New Years Resolutions for other folks.

Behave yourself out there.

1.  Monica Lewinsky.

Enough already Monica.

Every Presidential election cycle you reappear, to tell us about your sad tale of woe about how you. . . you know. . . and that means you're now haunted by the memory of. . .

Whatever.  Enough's enough.  No more books, television appearances, whatever.  We get it.  You and Bill Clinton . . . you know.

Do something else noteworthy, if you  must be noteworthy, that doesn't involve the Clinton's or . . . you know.  And don't make an appearance in 2019.  At all.

And it isn't actually necessary that you wear a black dress to remind you of your scandal era appearance.  Don't you have a Nick's jersey or something?

2. The New Yorkers.

The Big Apple.  I'm sure there are a lot of great things about New York, the city, and New York, the state, but right now Schumer, Trump and the Times are making all of you look like a bunch of grade school brats. All the loud posturing may do really well there, but the rest of us are wondering if we can swap Guatemala for New York.  Behave yourself and turn the volume down to about two.

Okay, we don't really mean all New Yorkers.

And certainly not the Yankees, our favorite New Yorkers.

But some of you really need to knock it off . . and you know who you are. The New York Times, Donald J. Trump, Chuckles Schumer, whoever your mayor is, Michael Bloomberg and even Bernie Sanders, who is really a New Yorker (yes, Bernie, we know that you are not from Vermont.  We'd even include Hillary Clinton, who is an ersatz New Yorker.  We've had enough of you already.  We get it.  You're bold, you're brash, you're really irritating.

The entire state of the country can be pretty much summed up by the dual temper tantrums of Donald Trump and Chuckles Schumer. Well, enough of it.  Behave and show up in the news as little as possible in 2019.

Like, as little as possible.

You know which ones you are.

The rest of you we're okay hearing from.

3.  Donald Trump.

Don.  Try emulating Franklin Roosevelt, or Theodore Roosevelt.  They were New Yorkers too.

Okay, New Yorker Donald J. Trump, your going into the third year of your presidency.  In addition to not being in some weird New York yelling match with Chuckles this year, act like a President and quit the entire twitter thing and sudden changes in things. And try to make us suspect your in bed with the Russians less.  A little dignity would go a long ways.

4.  Vlad Putin

Ivan the Terrible.  We don't need a Vlad the Terrible.

You aren't the Czar.  Stop acting like one.

And as you claim to be Russian Orthodox, it may be time for a General Confession.  Just saying.

You're coming up on a term limit by the way.  Surprise us all and step down. Russia will be fine without you. . .in fact it would be a lot better.

5.  The Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church.

It's hard for us who aren't either to tell what this entire schism is about, but we are certain that schism are sinful.  Ponder it and get it patched up, whatever its about.  And then reconsider the 1054 event.  Enough's enough.

6.  The Wyoming Legislature.

Hand off public lands. We mean it.

7.  Miley Cyrus.

We don't care what you are doing. Quit trying so hard to get our attention.

Same for you Lindsay Lohan.

8.  The Wyoming Legislature

See No. 6.  We really mean it.

And while you're out let's cool silly legislation like trying to keep out the "wrong" kind of people from your own particular political party.

9.  The Movie Industry.

Isn't there anything you can make a movie about that isn't a Marvel cartoon?

Seriously, Marvel cartoons cease to be something worthy of consideration when you are about eight years old.  Stop filming them.

10.  The Movie Going Public

Marvel cartoons? Seriously, like, when you are 30?

11.  Hillary Clinton

There's a Presidential election coming up.  Just say no.

12.  Democrats of age 70 and up.

Come on, let the kids have a chance at running things.  Or at least people in their 60s.

13.  Apple

A year without a new Iphone on the horizon.  Give it a try.

14.  Catherine Rampell.

Okay, it's really cute how you are a Princeton grad and the daughter of two Princeton grads and all, but you've been out of school for a decade now.  Time to go get a real job.  Maybe you can go back to writing political opinions when you've actually lived enough to actually have the experience to write.

The Washington Post and the world will still be there.  Go ahead, get some experience for all that writing.

15. Congress

There are people worthy of being on the Supreme Court who haven't gone to an Ivy League school.  You used to appoint them.

Why not give that a try again?

16.  Kim Jong-un

Hey, it's not too late to come out of the Stalinist theme park still looking good.  Take the border controls down and dissolve North Korea before it becomes even more of the freakish Communist experiment gone horribly wrong than it already is.

17.  Brewers

More IPAs are not necessary.

Try a lager or something.

18.  American public

And a final resolution.

American public, sick and tired of a government that isn't working and problems that don't get solved?

Well do something about it. And doing something about it would mean sending people to Congress who really will do something.  Folks who can read the Constitution, have a long sighted view, and who are willing to tell you that you can't have everything you want.